Cartoonist Discusses Cathy's Engagement

By: Dave Astor As readers of this morning's comics pages know, the star of "Cathy" said "yes" to longtime boyfriend Irving's marriage proposal. And there is more than a single reason why Cathy will no longer be single.

Since her comic is partly autobiographical, Cathy Guisewite was finding it harder to create situations for a character living a life she no longer lives. "I've been a mother 11 years and married six years, so my relationship with the dating world had changed drastically, to say the least," Guisewite told E&P. "I missed being able to write a little bit closer to home. And I felt like I was cheating on my husband whenever Cathy went out on a date!"

Many of Guisewite's readers also have different lives. The cartoonist noted that some women who've read "Cathy" since its 1976 debut are now not only married, but have become grandmothers. "They're, like, two steps ahead of me," said Guisewite. A number of these readers have written Guisewite to say they want Cathy to move to a different stage in life.

Guisewite, 53, added that she's old enough to identify with Cathy's mother as well as Cathy. And that cartoon mom, as readers well know, has always wanted her daughter to get married.

Among the other reasons for the cartoon engagement: Getting out of the pattern of familiar plot lines. "Part of why I'm doing this is to re-energize the strip for readers and myself," said Guisewite, whose comic appears in about 1,400 newspapers via Universal Press Syndicate (www.ucomics.com).

There'll be plenty of possibilities for new material now that the Valentine's Day episode has been published. Upcoming content will include the reaction of Cathy's mother to the engagement, the reaction of Cathy's and Irving's respective dogs to the event, the planning of the wedding, and the ceremony itself -- which Guisewite said will take place no later than a year from now. "There's a sick curiosity about how a couple who can't sustain a relationship for 48 hours is going to do when they're married!" she added wryly.

Eventual parenthood for Cathy and Irving? "Maybe," replied Guisewite, whose feature was one of the first humor strips by a female cartoonist as well as one of the first to star a single working woman -- and a conflicted, openly emotional one, at that.

Guisewite said she'd been thinking about making Cathy a married woman for several years. "I kept chickening out," she recalled. "But it's too late to back out now! I feel exactly the same way I did when I got engaged -- partly thrilled and partly panicked."